The Messiah of the Gospels

The Messiah of the Gospels

The Messiah of the Gospels

Excerpt

In the autumn of 1886 the volume entitled Messianic Prophecy was published as the first of a series of volumes upon the Messianic Ideal. As was stated in the Preface to that volume: "It treats of Prophecy in general, of Messianic Prophecy in particular, and then traces the development of the Messianic idea in the Old Testament, concluding with a summary of the ideal therein unfolded. It will remain for a second volume to show how far this ideal has been fulfilled by the first advent of the Messiah, and how far it remained unfulfilled and was taken up into New Testament Prophecy and carried on to a higher stage of development. A third volume should trace the history of the Messianic ideal in the Christian Church, and show its importance in the development of Christian doctrine."

It was my intention at that time to publish the second volume of the series a short time after the first. The material had already been gathered and it was put in the form of a volume in the summer of 1888. But the Revision movement in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A. made it a duty to take my share in that great ecclesiastical struggle. Some of the fruits of these labors appeared in the volumes, Whither, 1889; and How Shall We Revise, 1890. The Revision movement had as its sequel a long struggle against ecclesiastical domination and in behalf of the right of Biblical Criticism and of the fountains of authority in Religion. The fruits . . .